obama campaign surrogate, senator dick durbin, thanks for being with us. >> sure. good to be with you. >> appreciate that. the headline is did obama just throw the entire election away? and it gets worse from there. tell me a little bit about if you think, in fact, that this polling you're seeing -- the polling is literally due to what happened that night in the debate. >> we always said it would be a close election. i believe it will be. disappointed, of course, with the debate. believe the president understands his challenge now. he was shocked and surprised. many of us were. mitt romney came on that set at the first debate and said things which completely contradicted what he said in the campaign befo before. i think it caught the prz a little bit by surprise. he won't be surprised again. >> you cannot tell me that his poor debate performance was he was sitting there, stunned in front of the american public as opposed to presenting his side of the argument. people have talked a little bit about the air, pressure from the high altitude. >> high altitude. >> peopl